


Five Conversations

by msgenevieve



Category: Prison Break
Genre: Canon, F/M, Gen, Het, Missing Scene, season four
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-04
Updated: 2008-09-04
Packaged: 2017-10-14 09:34:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/147858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msgenevieve/pseuds/msgenevieve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's harder to connect the dots if too many of them are missing, but not impossible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Conversations

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, this story is about five conversations I'm pretending took place during #401, Scylla, and contains spoilers for that episode.

~*~

 

They both jump when the cell phone lying on the table between them rings, but LJ is the one who reaches for it. Sofia closes her eyes when he flips open the phone, as though she can't bear to watch his face while he talks to his father. “Dad?”

“LJ.” His father’s voice rumbles over him, thick and weary with relief. “Are you both okay?”

“We’re fine, we’re both fine.” His voice cracks on the last word, making him sound like he’s ten years old again, but he doesn’t care. “Where are you?”

His father sighs. “Chicago.”

LJ looks at Sofia, who is watching him with fear in her dark eyes. “Why are you in Chicago?”

There’s a few seconds pause, then another heavy sigh. “It’s a long story, LJ. The good news is that your uncle and I are working with the right people and we’re going to fix that problem of ours once and for all.”

“Yeah, but-”

“The bad news is that I’m going to be stuck in the US for a while and it’s too risky for you and Sofia to be around me.”

 _You’re sixteen years old_ , LJ tells himself furiously as he feels his eyes start to prickle hotly, but it doesn’t seem to help. “We should be there with you.”

There’s no hesitation this time. “Listen to me,” his father tells him in a low, urgent voice. “There’s a team on its way to the house to pick you up. They’re going to take you to a safe place, just for a while. Okay?”

LJ feels his jaw clench, but he recognizes the tone in his father’s voice. There’s no arguing with him, not about this. “Okay.”

“I love you, LJ. Remember that.”

He closes his eyes, knowing he’s lost count of the number of times he’s ended a telephone call to his father in tears. “I know. I love you, too.”

“Good man.” His dad’s voice is raspy, and LJ suddenly wonders if he’s crying too. “I need to talk to Sofia now, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.” Pulling the phone away from his ear, he hands it to Sofia without a word. Her dark eyes are already brimming with tears, her hand shaking as her fingers wrap around the small phone.

“Lincoln?”

As that one strangled word comes out of her mouth, LJ pushes back his chair and gets to his feet, because he can't bear to watch her face when his dad breaks her heart.

 

~*~

 

He’s hovering in the kitchen when she goes to get a glass of water, and she has the feeling he’s been waiting for her. He watches her fill the glass, then clears his throat loudly. “So.”

She turns to face him, her fingers tightening around the slippery glass. She’d known this conversation was coming, and she’s glad of the chance to clear the air, but her thoughts are still in a thousand different places. She’s not sure she’s ready to talk about how the Company fooled him into thinking he’d caused her death. “So.”

He’s always been far more taciturn than his brother, and now it looks as though each word is being dragged up from the soles of his feet. “Did Michael tell you? What I saw in the garage?”

 _Direct to the point of bluntness_ , she thinks. _Good to see that some things haven’t changed._

Placing the glass carefully on the kitchen counter, she nods as she wraps her arms around herself. Bruce had stashed her away in this little house two days ago, and the heating hasn’t worked properly once. Funny thing is, though, she doesn’t think that’s why she’s suddenly shivering. “He did.” She looks at him, his pinched expression, lips pressed together so tight they’re almost bloodless. She’s seen more than enough of the darkness while they’ve been apart; she doesn’t have to imagine what that moment had been like for him. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

He looks at her in faint astonishment. “Why the hell are _you_ sorry?”

“I’m guessing maybe because you thought it was your fault?” She needs to keep talking about how he feels because if she does, maybe she can stop thinking about how _she_ feels. “Because you hadn’t been able to grab LJ and I in Santa Rosita?”

His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “I had to tell Michael you were dead.”

The pain in his voice slices into her heart, dragging like a blunt knife. She doesn't want to think of that moment, not when she's already seen the lingering echo of grief in Michael's eyes, but it’s suddenly very important that Lincoln knows this wasn’t his fault. None of it was his fault, anymore than it was Michael’s. “If it’s any consolation, I almost was.” She leans back against the edge of the counter, so hard she can feel it cutting into her hip. It’s a good pain, helping her focus on making her words sound normal. “I’m sorry about LJ, too.”

He stares at her. “LJ’s fine.”

“When I got away from, uh, from _them_ ,” she says carefully, not wanting to speak that woman’s name in this house, “I didn’t know where I was.” He frowns, and she rushes to explain. “They separated us after Santa Rosita, took me some place else.” She feels her stomach spasm, the remembered sound of her own screams thrumming inside her head like a second heartbeat. She takes a deep breath, and the pounding recedes. “Somewhere remote.” This is the second time she’s told this story today, the first time while wrapped in Michael’s arms, her head buried against his shoulder.

It’s no easier this time around.

"I looked for LJ, but he wasn't there," she adds, her voice not quite steady. "I didn't know where he was." She tries to smile, but it doesn't work. "All I knew was that he wasn't there, and if I stayed, I was going to die."

"It's okay, Sara." His gaze slides away from her face to study his feet, then lifts to meet her eyes once more. "I didn't think that you'd abandoned him."

She nods, feeling like a balloon that's just had all the air let out of it. Michael had told her exactly the same thing not thirty minutes ago, but it was to LJ's father than she needed to say these words. "I'm glad."

“LJ said he’d heard-” He breaks off abruptly, then shakes his head, as though trying to clear his vision. “Do you know who she was?” He glances towards the sound of his brother’s approaching footsteps. “The woman who died?”

Sara feels the burn of nausea touch her throat. There are some things she doesn’t want to remember, not yet. She shakes her head, praying they’ll forgive her this small lie. “No.”

He nods slowly, then gives her a reassuring smile. “You’ll be okay, you know. You just need some time.”

She smiles back, even though it feels brittle and breakable on her lips, because one good lie deserves another. “I know.”

 

~*~

 

“Now that’s what I call a sight for sore eyes.”

Michael grins at his former cellmate, who has sprung up from the interview table like an overgrown puppy. “Fernando.”

Sucre’s eyes widen. “What’s with all this _Fernando_ bullshit? You sound like my Mama,” and then they’re both laughing and Sucre is slapping him on the back so hard he can almost feel his ribs rattle. “What’s going on, man?”

 _Michael extracts himself from the other man’s exuberant embrace with difficulty. “Firstly, tell me what the hell _you_ were doing in Sona?”_

Sucre lets out a loud sigh, stepping backwards until the plastic chair hits the back of his knees, then sinks into it. “You know how I told you on the phone that I was already on the bus?”

 _First Sara, then Sucre._ Michael closes his eyes at the unpalatable realization that he’s apparently the kind of man who would fall for the same story twice. “I take it you weren’t anywhere near the bus?”

Sucre grins. “Not exactly, no.” Their eyes meet, and Sucre immediately lifts his hand to wave away the words that are obviously written all over Michael’s face. “It’s over and done with now, Papi. Sona has burned to the ground and kept on going straight down to Hell.” He crosses himself quickly, then tosses Michael another quick smile. “You gonna tell me what’s going on here or what?”

Michael feels a smile stretch across his own face. “That depends.” Pulling out the plastic chair on the other side of the interview table, he eases himself into it, wanting to be on exactly the same level. “Are you going to tell me what you were doing at that hospital when you got arrested?”

The other man literally starts bouncing in his seat. “I saw my bambina, Michael.”

Michael blinks, dates and numbers flashing through his head. “Maricruz had the baby?”

Sucre beams across the table, and Michael knows it’s not him he’s really seeing. “Yep. A beautiful baby girl with my name, Papi.” His face falls, his eyes growing dark. “Teresa, Maricruz’s sister, she set me up. The police were waiting to pounce at the hospital, just like they'd been waiting at the wedding.”

 _But that’s not right. That couldn’t be right._. Michael bites the inside of his lip, silencing his words with an effort. He needs Sucre focused and happy to be wherever Self sends them. If that means not breathing a word about it being practically impossible for that baby to have been Maricruz’s child, then so be it. He’s told worse lies by omission in his life, after all. “Congratulations.” He smiles at the other man, hoping he can't see the truth in his eyes. “ _Papi_.”

"Thanks, man." Sucre's answering grin almost splits his face in half. "So, are you gonna tell me what's going on or what?"

Michael hesitates. Once he asks the question, there's no going back, and he already knows what Sucre's answer is going to be. Taking a deep breath, he looks at his friend's open, trusting face and says the words that will change everything. "There's a way to reduce all our sentence down to nothing. We're going after the Company, and there's also every chance none of us will come out of it alive. Are you interested?"

His friend studies him for a moment, his fingers drumming on the table. "Are you the guy doing the planning?"

Michael gives him the simplest answer possible, determined not to stray too far from the truth. "Yes."

Sucre looks down at his empty hands, and Michael can't help wondering if he's picturing the child he'd held only a few hours earlier. He slowly curls his hands into fists, then looks up. "Sign me up."

 

~*~

 

Seeing the familiar silhouette framed by the window, Brad Bellick stops in his tracks, so quickly that Sucre almost smacks into his shoulder. “Man, they got you too?”

It takes at least half a minute for Alexander Mahone to acknowledge their presence, even though they’ve now walked into the room and are standing right in front of him. Finally, he turns his head, his pale blue eyes meeting Brad’s. “Yeah, they got me, too.”

That said, he turns his head and looks out the window once more, the conversation apparently over before it could even begin. Catching Sucre’s eye, Brad shrugs. God only knows what this guy’s story was. Brad sure as hell had never managed to work it out, not even after all those hours they’d spent talking about chasing Scofield. “What do you think we’ll have to do?” he asks Sucre, shoving his hands in his pockets to hide the fact that they’re shaking. “Go undercover and do surveillance, that kind of stuff?”

Sucre lifts his shoulders in a shrug of his own. “I got no idea, man. I’m not exactly an expert on this kind of thing.” He turns towards the man at the window, pointedly raising his voice. “What do _you_ think?”

Once again, it takes the ex-FBI guy a long time to answer, so long that Brad starts to think they should just forget about trying to be friendly. But then he turns to them, his face a blank mask. “I think you should keep your heads down and your noses clean and do _exactly_ what they tell you to do.”

Sucre’s gaze narrows. “Yeah, thanks, man.”

Silence falls over the room, and every passing moment increases the nervousness writhing in Brad’s stomach. _No matter what_ , he tells himself as he puts his hand on his belly, _nothing could be as bad as that shithole in Panama. Nothing._

Which reminds him –

“You talked to Scofield, right?” Sucre darts him a look, and he hastily amends the question. “To Michael, I mean. You talked to him? About me?”

Sucre smiles. “Yep. Told him how you’d stood up beside me when it all went down, and that I wouldn’t be breathing if it wasn’t for you.”

The writhing in Brad’s guts is briefly forgotten as a wave of pride washes over him. He’d done some bad stuff in that place, but he’d done some good stuff, too. “And he was good with that?”

Sucre nods. “He’s not the type to hold a grudge, bro.”

A dull bark of laughter floats across from the far window. Alex Mahone has turned to face the room now, his hands fidgeting with the long sleeves of his shirt. “No, of course not.”

Brad and Sucre exchange a glance, and Brad sees his own reluctance to get involved mirrored in the other man’s eyes. Maybe, though, they should clear the air if they’re going to have to work as a team. _Then again,_ he thinks as he glances over at the former FBI agent, who is staring unseeingly at the floor beneath his feet, his body no longer fidgeting but as still as a carved statue, _maybe not_.

 

~*~

 

The sandy-haired man motions to Michael from the doorway. "Laser time. Let's go."

Grabbing her purse from the floor beside her chair, Sara gets to her feet. “I’m coming with you.”

Michael hesitates, then shakes his head. “I’ll be fine.”

She gives him a determined smile as she hitches the strap of her purse over her shoulder. “That wasn’t a question, Scofield.”

“Sara, please. Please stay here.” He puts his hand on her arm, his gaze dark as it roams her face. “Every time we leave this building, the chance of being taken by the Company increases tenfold.” His hand tightens around her wrists, a tender pressure. “This procedure is going to take all night.”

“I know.” She looks at his face, pale with nervous anticipation, and her heart aches for what he's about to endure. He has the highest pain threshhold of anyone she's ever met, but there are limits to what the human body can bear. “Which is why I don’t want you to go through it alone.”

He closes his eyes, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he takes a deep breath. “And I don’t want you to have to go through it with me.”

“Why not?”

He opens his eyes. “Because it’s going to be bad. It’s going to be bloody and it’s going to be ugly.”

She stares at him. “You think I care about that?”

He lifts his other hand to touch the nape of her neck, his fingertips ghosting down the length of her spine, a butterfly-light touch over of the scars they both know are there. “I think you’ve seen enough bloody and ugly things,” he says simply, and she feels her heart contract.

“I can sit in the waiting room.”

He looks at her, his expression an odd mixture of hope and disapproval. “For twelve hours?”

She touches the hand around her wrist, threading her fingers through his. As always, the feel of his hand in hers makes it easy to agree to the impossible. “Yes.”

He smiles, a sudden warmth in his eyes. “You’d better bring your earplugs, then. It's going to take all night, and things could get noisy.”

Knowing she’s won this particular battle, she flashes him a bright smile of her own. “Why? Do you snore?”

A different kind of warmth creeps into his eyes. “You’ll have to wait and see, won’t you?”

 _Oh_. A flash of heat flickers up the back of her neck, but before she can answer, another voice cuts through the air. “Uh, sometime today, if that’s not too much to ask?”

Their official keeper is glaring at them from across the room, his hands on his hips, and Sara can’t help wondering if there is a person on this earth who isn’t destined to interrupt her every conversation with Michael Scofield. “We’re coming.”

The FBI agent looks at her. “You got an unwanted tattoo too, Doctor Tancredi?”

“Nope.” Releasing Michael’s hand, she starts walking towards the door. “But I’m coming along for the ride, anyway.”

The other man purses his lips, looking from her to Michael, standing at her shoulder, then tilts his head in a resigned nod. “Yeah, I figured that.”

 

~*~


End file.
